


fits a little better now

by imagines



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Because feelings are hard, Disaster gay Shiro, Emotional Vulnerability, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-S7, shiro’s leather jacket, very light angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 08:25:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17138363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagines/pseuds/imagines
Summary: After the bandages are off, the stitches are out, and the pain has subsided, Keith takes Shiro into the desert. “I don’t know if the shack’ll be there,” Keith hedges. “For all I know, we’ll just find bare dirt. Maybe a pile of rubble, if I’m lucky.” All this time gone by, and still Keith doesn’t know he deserves more than broken hopes. (Sheith Secret Santa 2018)





	fits a little better now

**Author's Note:**

> For [@lavenderpaladin](https://twitter.com/lavenderpaladin/)! <3
> 
> There's a drawing to go with it, but AO3 isn't letting me add images today for some reason..? So it's linked at the place it goes. :D

 

After the bandages are off, the stitches are out, and the pain has subsided, Keith takes Shiro into the desert. “I don’t know if the shack’ll be there,” Keith hedges. “For all I know, we’ll just find bare dirt. Maybe a pile of rubble, if I’m lucky.” All this time gone by, and still Keith doesn’t know he deserves more than broken hopes.

They used to race each other to the shack, tearing across the desert and kicking up clouds of dust. Shiro won more often than not, but sometimes Keith got past him. He’d always chalk that up to luck, too—never his own skill or hard work. (He takes a little more credit for himself these days, and Shiro’s glad to see it.)

Shiro doesn’t ask to race now, just lets Keith lead the way. They don’t talk much, but it’s not an uncomfortable silence. Any tension there ever was between them has bled out into the sky, a casualty of a war that thrust the two of them together as often as it tore them apart. And when it was all over, they were left together. As luck would have it, Shiro thinks.

At the ridge marking the boundary of the land Keith’s father had owned, Keith stops short. Shiro pulls up beside him, waiting for Keith to untangle his thoughts enough to speak.

But Keith just stares at the ridge with his jaw set tight.

“If you want to go back, it’s all right,” Shiro tells him, but Keith shakes his head, which Shiro expected. Maybe Keith wants to be by himself and doesn’t know how to say it. “Would you rather go on alone?” he tries next. “I can wait here, or meet you back at—”

“No,” Keith says. He’s gripping the handlebars of his hoverbike so hard his knuckles are bloodless. “No, I don’t want to go alone.” He’s different now, more straightforward, quicker to ask for what he needs. His openness astonishes Shiro at times—he’s made room for Shiro in so many ways he never had before.

“Let me know when you’re ready.” Shiro squeezes Keith’s shoulder. It’s a solemn moment; guiltily, he shoves away the thought that Keith’s shoulder is no longer slight and delicate under Shiro’s hand.

“I’m ready now.”

Together they crest the ridge, and there before them—

It’s as though the land was never touched. Improbable luck—impossible, Shiro might have said, but the shack still stands exactly as they left it, though the roof slumps a little and the porch stairs creak ominously under their weight. Keith rummages in his pants pocket for his keychain—the same one he’s had as long as Shiro has known him, a loop of plain red leather linked to a metal ring. Somehow he’s never lost it in all their travels. “How do you still have that?” Shiro asks.

Keith shrugs. “I’m good at keeping track of my stuff, I guess.” He jiggles one of the keys into the rusty lock on the front door. It pops open, and the door swings inward. He gives Shiro an inscrutable look over his shoulder. “Found you every time you were lost, didn’t I?” Without waiting for an answer, he slips into the dark interior of the shack.

For a moment, Shiro finds himself frozen, processing that. He’s pretty sure Keith just implied that he considers Shiro some of “his stuff.” That he feels Shiro _belongs_ to him. That’s a slightly different take on their friendship than Shiro would have anticipated, and it makes him feel shivery, fluttery, as if he’s young again with a crush on—

He shakes his head hard, dispelling the thought. Even if he did have a crush on Keith, now is certainly not the time to say so.

“Are you coming in?” Keith sounds worried, as if he thinks he’s upset Shiro, which could not be further from the truth.

Shiro steps through the doorway. “I’m here. Find anything good?”

Keith’s in shadow in the corner of the room, his back to Shiro. “Actually, yeah.” He turns and steps into the sunlight glowing dimly through the moth-eaten curtains. The air swims with glittering dust motes. In Keith’s presence, even dirt and disrepair turn beautiful.

Keith holds up his prize. “I was keeping it safe during Kerberos, just like you asked. Didn’t get a chance to grab it before, you know, blue lion and all that.”

Shiro can’t take his eyes off what Keith’s found: Shiro’s old leather jacket. Possibly the last article of his own clothing left on this planet.

“Go ahead. Try it on.” Keith practically shoves the jacket into Shiro’s hands.

“You’re in a hurry,” Shiro teases, but he slides his arm into the sleeve as he’s been told. (The Altean arm is hopeless; he doesn’t even try.) It’s a tight fit. _Really_ tight—the leather strains across his shoulders, and when he tries to zip it up, he only gets the zipper halfway up his torso. It’s no use. His body has changed too much in his years away.

Keith is covering his mouth, and there’s a suspicious glint in his eyes.

“Don’t laugh,” Shiro complains. “I can’t help it! Here, _you_ try it, then—” He yanks off the jacket, with a fair amount of effort, and pushes it at Keith.

“I used to _drown_ in this,” Keith says, but he takes the jacket and puts it on anyway.

“Oh,” Shiro says. The air seems too thin, all of a sudden; he definitely isn’t getting enough oxygen. “Keith, you—oh.”

“Huh.” Keith plucks at the cuff of one sleeve, which ends just past his wrist, instead of sliding down all the way over his hand. “Fits a little better now.”

Shiro takes a deep breath. It’s too loud for the small space they’re in, and he’s never been good at covering. “Y-yeah. Sure does.”

“You okay there, Shiro?” Keith’s lips are twitching. “Do I look that good in your clothes?”

Shiro is going to die right now in Keith’s shack. Just collapse and perish on the bare floorboards. If Keith has guessed—

“Hey,” Keith says, brows pinching into a frown. “I’m kidding, Shiro, it’s okay.”

“It’s just—” Shiro swallows. All the dust is choking him. “You grew up.” There’s a shake in his voice. Also attributable to the dust.

Keith, never one for personal space when it comes to Shiro, steps right up to him and puts his hands on Shiro’s shoulders. They’re virtually eye-to-eye now. It’s—something.

“You grew up too,” Keith says in a soft voice. “We both did.”

Shiro’s palms feel staticky, drawn to Keith, and it’s probably just the dry air, or—or the dust getting into the joints of his prosthetic. That’s his excuse when he sets his hands on Keith’s waist. “I never thought I’d get to see you grow up.”

“But you did. We made it, Shiro. We’re okay—we’re safe. We could spend the rest of our lives together, if we wanted.” Keith’s eyes fly wide and he claps a hand over his mouth. Muffled, he says, “I don’t mean…”

Shiro touches the back of Keith’s wrist where the cuff has pulled back. “Is that what you want?”

Keith won’t look at him or speak. Shiro gently takes hold of his hand and pulls it away from his mouth. Suddenly they’re holding hands—and Keith doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to let go.

“Keith,” Shiro tries again. “You can tell me.”

Keith replies, finally, but not to the question Shiro asked. “You really think the jacket looks okay on me?”

“More than okay. It’s like it was made for you.”

“But it wasn’t. It surprised me when it fit so well. We’ve changed a lot, haven’t we?” Keith still hasn’t let go of Shiro’s hand. “Sometimes…sometimes things get so comfortable and familiar that you don’t even notice how different they’ve become. Not until it gets pointed out.”

Keith only speaks this indirectly when he’s afraid. Shiro knows just one thing that always helps Keith feel braver: he pulls Keith into a hug, their joined hands caught between them. Keith’s breath hitches, as if he might cry, but he doesn’t. “I’d go anywhere with you,” Shiro tells him. “Just name the place.” It’s not an empty offer. He has his whole life ahead of him now—and he can’t imagine it without Keith.

Keith laughs, his mouth brushing Shiro’s neck, almost like a kiss. “I spent too many years away from you. All I want is to see you every day.”

“That could be arranged.” Play it off with humor, Shiro tells himself. He can suggest they be roommates. With separate—rooms.

Keith jerks his head up. “Travel with me,” he says, oddly breathless. “See the universe with me. No war, no fear, just us and the stars.”

“How long a trip are you thinking?”

Keith shrugs, evasive. “However long we want.”

“The rest of our lives?” Shiro guesses.

The brightness in Keith’s eyes threatens to spill over. “You’d want me— _that_ , you’d want that?”

“I want everything with you. Always. As long as that’s what you want, too.”

“Let’s do it,” Keith whispers. “Just you and me. Together.”

Something fragile and new is building here, like tendrils of silk strung with glass flowers, and Shiro fears to test it—but it’s time. “When you say together…do you mean…”

Keith’s shy smile turns devious, always a sign that Shiro’s in for it in the best way possible. “I mean you _really_ like me in your jacket. You’re about as subtle as an ion cannon. And I like that you like it. Does that help clear it up?”

“I’m still a little confused,” Shiro says. He pulls Keith close again, enjoying Keith’s shocked little gasp as his chest presses flush to Shiro’s. “Help me understand?”

“Understand _this_ —” Keith cups the back of Shiro’s head; Shiro is struck silent by the size of his hand. “I’ll never leave you, Shiro. For as long as you’ll have me by your side, that’s where I’ll be.”

“I was hoping you’d kiss me,” Shiro says faintly. “But okay, that works.”

“A kiss can be arranged,” Keith murmurs, and between one breath and the next, he’s pressing his mouth to Shiro’s, his tongue curious at the seam of Shiro’s lips, his fingers tight in Shiro’s hair. [[img](http://oi66.tinypic.com/118zxno.jpg)]

Shiro’s last kiss was perfunctory, done out of habit, with little affection left although he’d ached to have it back. It’s been a long, long time since he kissed someone’s smile. But they’ve made it so far already—he thinks maybe they can make this happen, too.

Keith lets him up for air, and while Shiro’s busy gasping, Keith pulls up the zipper of the jacket all the way to his throat. “And by the way, I’m keeping the jacket,” he informs Shiro.

“I’m keeping _you_ ,” Shiro retorts, and that’s all it takes for Keith to pounce on him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Meant to do a sketch. Got carried away. OOPS.
> 
> I'm over [at Twitter](https://twitter.com/belovedsheith) these days--come say hi!


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